- The Science Museum’s three-day festival celebrates 13 incredible animal robots from across Europe to showcase developments in biomimetics
- A Cheetah-Bot that can run at 1.42 metres per second, a flying bat and an amphibious salamander are just some of the creations to go on show
- Visitors can trek through the unnatural habitats of robots inspired by nature, interacting with creatures that swim, flap, and crawl
- After interacting with the robots, which have been painstakingly built by professionals, visitors can have a go at building their own simple versions
London might not be the first place that springs to mind when the words 'exotic', 'animals' and 'safari' are mentioned.
But a new exhibition showcasing robots inspired by nature will let visitors interact with an electronic cheetah cub, a mechanical flying bat and a shoal of biomimetic fish in the capital.
The Science Museum’s three-day festival celebrates 13 incredible robots from across Europe, many of which have gone on display for the first time.
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Bat-Bot uses extremely light artificial muscles to move. Its wings change shape during flight to efficiently manoeuvre. It was created by the Centre for Automatic and Robotics of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain and will go on show for the first time in the UK
Visitors to the exhibition, which opens on November 27 and runs for a long weekend until December 1, can trek through the unnatural habitats of robots inspired by nature, interacting with creatures that swim, flap, and crawl, in a ‘unique’ safari experience.
The exhibition includes an underwater turtle robot, a robotic cheetah-cub, a shoal of luminous robotic fish and the unveiling of Pleurobot, a mechanical salamander.
Roboticists will demonstrate their robots from helping visitors interact with the fish to stretching the bat's wings, while explaining the latest developments in biomimetic robotics.
Jessiko is a luminous robotic fish. In a shoal it shows how robots can work together and may be useful for studying the behaviour of real fish. Jessiko, which was created by Robotswim SARL, France, will go on show for the first time in the UK
Pleurobot replicates salamander movements recorded from X-ray films and will aid reserach into motor skills, while Salamandra Robotica II is an amphibious robot that can both swim in water and walk on land. The robot was created to better understand how neural circuits inside a salamander’s spinal cord enable movement
There are also lessons to help people programme, build and race their own simple robots.
Nicola Burghall, Content Developer for Robot Safari at the museum, said: ‘Visitors to Robot Safari will see not just how nature can inspire innovative robotic designs, but also how these biomimetic robots are actually advancing our understanding of the animals and plants they mimic.’
The cheetah robot, may not look that much like its furry inspiration, but it mimics the cat’s legs so it can walk and trot.
Cheetah-cub - École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland Cheetah-cub is the fastest sub-30kg quadruped robot in the world, reaching 1.42m/s. Lightweight, compact and self-stabilising, the robot mimics a cat's legs and is currently being used to investigate the mechanics of cat locomotion
Lightweight and self-stabilising, the next-generation cat is not just a novelty item, but is a research tool that has the potential to be used by scientists to explore rough terrains.
The robot, which is built by the robotics laboratory at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, the cub is the fastest four-legged robot that weighs under 30kg, in the world and can run at 1.42 metres per second.
The researchers are also debuting their robotic salamander – the Pleurobot – for the first time.
Tallinn University of Technology, Centre for Biorobotics, Estonia, has created 'Arrows' - an archaeology robot designed to dive to dangerous depths. The robotic turtle can operate independently, inspecting wrecks for hours before resurfacing, and has not been shown in the UK before
Professor Auke Ijspeert of EPFL, said: ‘Cheetah-cub mimics much of cat morphology – featuring significant simplifications and better performance than traditional quadruped robots – while the salamander-like Pleurobot represents the next stage in our quest to understand how the nervous system controls rich movement.
‘We aim to use Pleurobot for paleontology and robotics research, as we attempt to bring early tetrapods to life.’
The Bat-Bot uses extremely light artificial muscles to move and its wings change shape during flight, while Robo Spyder moves like the real thing and can negotiate obstacles as well as react to sound.
DodecaRob is a dodecahedral 12-legged robot, which mimics the way tumbleweed moves when blown by the wind. It was created by the University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania
An usual 12-legged robot mimics the unusual movement of a tumbleweed and another copies jellyfish propulsion to help scientists understand how the creatures move.
There are also multiple underwater robotic animals on show, including sea turtles, an iTuna and Jessiko - a luminous robotic fish that can swim as part of a shoal to show how robots can work together.
Robot Safari is free and suitable for all ages, but the Science Museum expects it to be popular and timed tickets will be needed, that can be booked in person at its ticket office or via 020 7942 4000.
iTuna is extremely simple, light and noiseless, using artificial muscles to move. This enables the robot to monitor underwater environments without disturbing local fish. It was developed by the Centre for Automatic and Robotics of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
